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I'm not sure if this is industry-specific enough (it probably isn't), but there is a CMS comparison matrix which compares 1,300 Content Management Systems.

Compare Content Management Systems http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

It really depends on your needs.
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix/cms-matrix Will allow you to compare CMSs. Drupal is a much more complex and flexable system then Wordpress. That comes at a cost in simplicity. I think the key here is "big projects like this"

There are so many CMSs, frameworks, Javascript libraries, DBs (even open source), and other parts of the stack that you could have one person in the company just devoted solely to trying to keep up, and be able to provide advice when a team is considering implementing something or another.

It's hard to think that you'd be using the "best-of-breed" if you don't even know what's available.

Your real question is:

Convincing Your Employer To Go With Plone?

The answer to this depends on how good your organization is with Zope/Python. If you have onsite developers with Zope knowledge (who can support Plone), Plone is a no-brainer. And if you have developers familiar with other OOS software like Java, you have plenty of other products to choose from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_source_content_management_systems
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

If you don't have any onsite development staff, the value proposition of OSS/Plone goes down because you will presumably have to hire someone to run it.

Frankly, that's what I would stress. If this is a large enough project you're going to have to hire someone to run it anyway. You can save on software costs by hiring someone who knows Plone.

If you're not hiring new staff it boils down to who within your organization is running the CMS and what THEY want. Most other considerations are relatively trivial. The more "out of the box" they need the software to be, the more that leans towards a proprietary solution. They might also want to be able to have a vendor to complain to and to provide direct support, again, proprietary has an edge here.

Popularity also factors in. I don't really know how popular Plone is, but Confluence is really popular. That means there will be lots of online resources (forums, FAQs, etc.) for Confluence that you might not find for Plone.

I had to work with that CMS and its the worst CMS.

Oh, no, you haven't seen the worst until you've had to rescue someone from a proprietary CMS which was designed primarily to create vendor lock-in. And then the vendor goes away. And then they used a PHP obfuscator. And some kind of in-memory symbol breaker.

Anybody here used Magnolia? I was looking at it for a family member's small business.

As I already commented below, check out http://www.cmsmatrix.org/. This site has lots of choices with comparisons and a discussion board. I've found it to be quite helpful.

Check out http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

I might be reinventing the wheel of this argument, but just to make sure it's articulated: Do we really need to encourage more programmers to reinvent the wheel on the CMS? I feel like that approach should be discouraged for the sake of all of the non-technical users out there who have to deal with engineer-built back-end interfaces that tend to result from projects like what one would use this book to approach.

Even major, enterprise-level CMS solutions would probably benefit from starting with an off-the-shelf solution that has a back-end with a few years of solid UI refinement behind it and extending that with whatever functionality is required, though an API or otherwise.

The perfect CMS may not have been invented yet, but programmers need to realize that they're not going to make a better one from scratch. They're just going to make another mediochre entry for the left column of CMS Matrix. Why not choose one of the dominant options out there, join it's development community, and start working to make it solve your problems?

I haven't read this book and it may well provide a good overview of the basic architectural questions one would want to be familiar with to approach an existing system. And I'm certainly not saying it should be published. But a book like this should, I feel, at least start with a discussion of _why_ you would want to build a CMS from scratch, before it gets into how.

The only difference is that it's written in Perl; still; I like WebGUI as much as I like Drupal.

I've always liked Coranto, also written in Perl but a lot more user-friendly & much smaller in footprint.

cmsmatrix is also coincidentially hosted by plainblack if my mind doesn't leave me now...

And the feature set is nothing special, if you compare it in the CMS matrix.
http://cmsmatrix.org/

I've used Typo3, Joomla, and Drupal. I would say that Joomla is the easiest to set up and use, but it also less customizable (although it seems to have more e-commerce plugins than some of the others). If it does what you need it to, Joomla is great. I haven't used PHP-Nuke in years but my impression is that (again) Joomla is superior in ease of use and inferior in flexibility.

The CMS Matrix has a summary of features (which can be compared against other CMS systems in its list).

I'm not sure what features you use sharepoint for, and how much you are paying for it, but you really should check out
http://cmsmatrix.org/ sometime.
Amazing what sets of features are available for free, and hell, the matrix often isn't aware of some nifty stuff out there for the more modular systems.

There are lots of good java based open source CMS's listed at cmsmatrix.org.

Seriously though, yes, more choices are always better

False. It has been shown in numerous studies that more choices often cause information overload, and result in poor choices being made.

from 606! open source CMS systems to choose from

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

dont ever think that OSS doesnt give you a choice
and choice is good right ?

Does anyone know if there exists a site which would provide a fairly comprehensive comparison of calendaring / groupware / collaboration software such as http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ provides for CMS solutions?

Here you go

yet another CMS, add it to the list only 548 to choose from, so dont let anyone tell you OSS doesnt give you a choice

While this does seem to be the obvious answer, at least in name, this site is not what people expect. It is NOT dedicated to open source, and it does not have anything other than PHP apps, some of which are not CMSes.

If you know in advance you must be using PHP, and you're not sure whether you want a portal, CMS, weblog, etc, then this is a good site.

However, if you have other languages in mind, or are open to a good CMS in any language, you should check other sources. One good reference site is CMS Matrix. Another good source of CMS information is CMS Watch; even though it concentrates on the entire spectrum of CMS systems (including commercial ones) it occasionally has very good articles or pointers to articles about open source products (like this one which I just found).

We had to choose between many CMS for our specialized site. There are many CMS out there. Our choice ended with slashcode. slashcode is hard to install and configure, but the thing is, we considered (other may think otherwise) it has a "killing feature" that was worthed the pain in the long run: slashcode's moderation system.

Different CMS shares a lot of features, but some features are unique from one to another and might influence your choice...

CMS stands for Content Management System. It's a framework that manages the guts of a web site for you, you provide the content, it does the rest.

Go to http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ for example to see a few of them. There are hundreds. Mambo is one. There are others. Some are easier to work with than others. See for yourself.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

You can read reviews and scores of over 100 blog types and can even compare up to 10 at a time.

A very handy and thorough site.

There are thousands of free cms avaiable, and many of them would match the few points you give.
try http://typo3.com/ or better:
look at http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ and compare them yourself.
Plone, which was mentioned before, is worth a look too.

CMSMatrix.org is another place to go - it doesn't limit the CMSes to PHP/MySQL ones, and allows you to narrow down the list by your required features. Very useful.

Once you've got a shortlist, then drop by opensourcecms, or the website for the actual app, and try out their demo.

--Simon

I decided to make my dreams come true and have my own slashsite. Wanting to migrate my successful GIS / RS mailing list to slash. http://www.matox.com/agisrs

SlashCSS is not "ready yet". I though it would be easy to setup the site, but even with a lot of help from the slash mailing lists and http://www.lottadot.com/ . A few weeks will be required for our launch announcement.

SlashCSS is really a great step in the right direction, however, my advice, if you're planning building a slash site, wait a little while, the whole process will be easier for you.

We chose slash over other CMS http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ mainly because of the great (even if flawed) moderation system.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix/cms-matrix?func=vi ewDetail&listingId=VwUTL75eyPbKiKAxG3cbKA

Following site allows you to test out live demos of open source CMS products, no login or registration required:

http://opensourcecms.com/

The only trouble with that link is it only lists PHP/mysql CMSs.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ will show you the rest, including commercial ones if you're interested (and considering the price of commercial CMSs, you're probably not) And it lets you compare based on the features you require.

... just use the CMS Matrix!

You're bound to find something that will fit your needs.

OpenSourceCMS is not about open source, or CMS for that matter. It is only about PHP. There are PHP non-CMS products, and there are non-open-source PHP apps.

If all you want is PHP, and don't really know if you want a CMS, then the site is fine. But if you really want a comprehensive comparison, look elsewhere. Maybe a site like http://cmsmatrix.org/.

Otherwise you might miss out on top-notch CMS products like Plone and Bricolage.

Other users already pointed out that you probably can't say that Drupal is the leading open-source CMS. It's one of several leading FOSS PHP CMS products, along with typo3 the upcoming xaraya and a few others.
Then there are all the Java-based CMS', which are not used by the masses because they are usually a little more resource hungry and your next shared webhosting plan doesn't include server side Java applications support.
And forget about *nuke like portals (I wouldn't call them CMS). They play in another league.

cmsmatrix.org gives a nice overview. And if you are interested in PHP-based products, you can test a lot of them on this site.

Here is your one stop place to compare CMS ... cmsmatrix.org

cAos web site is running on a non free CMS called Rife. Before [or after] you mod me a troll, look at the number of mature free alternatives CMS stystems out there.

For those of you looking for an Open Source CMS system, you may also want to consider Xaraya (which sprang out of the PostNuke project). Xaraya is currently closing in on its 1.0 release, and we've been running a site successfully since the 0.9.9 version. Extensibility in the form of modules and hooks feature prominently in Xaraya as well. And if you're still confused about which CMS system to pick (or want to be confused!), take a look at cmsmatrix.org.

What are the downsides to their content management system? I was looking at it very seriously last weekend (http://matrix.squiz.net/), and although I was surprised by the licensing terms, the features are incredible--I think the only other OSS project currently offering anything comparable is Plone, although I'd be glad to be corrected. Just don't say Mambo or Xaraya or anything else at http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ or http://www.oscom.org/matrix/index.html that I've already investigated. Our current (costly) content management system runs over 350 separate domains, and we've got to have a finished CMS designed to do that all in one package while being clusterable and providing Mac/Linux-compatible WYSIWYG editing to end users managing one site each. Plone might fit the bill, but its Python and ZODB foundations feel pretty exotic compared to MySource Matrix's PHP and PostgreSQL ... Most of our developers won't touch Plone. On the other hand, MySource Matrix's licensing terms would actually be an improvement here, where inertia causes all our source to remain closed under ordinary circumstances.

or to plone ? (which is my favorite opensource CMS)

Compare with Drupal with xxx on CMS Matrix

Yeah, I know there isn't a lot of money out there in web development. But if you can evolve a web development company to be a CMS integration vendor, there's a demand. Using PLONE, Postnuke, or a few other open sourced CMS packages, a good salesman can sell CMS services to area businesses.

CMS offerings are what can seperate your company in a pitch meeting from the competition if you can offer a proposal that includes empowering the customer to update the content themselves without editing files by hand.

"Disclaimer: I am a developer of OpenOffice.org Mac OS X and a founder of the NeoOffice [neooffice.org] project."

Slightly off the path, but I noticed that OpenOffices format would fit perfectly into a CMS framework.

You can try Mambo or Typo3. They are both great.

But before making a decision, you can check OpenSourceCMS for demo of diferent CMS'. Another great comparison site is CMSMatrix

There's a very good place to find them all, CMSMatrix:
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

actually, This site is better, as it lists more than PHP based CMSs

I'd take any of the reports on this site with a grain of salt and (as always) do a little of your own research before making any decisions.

Anyone out there have more expertise on the other CMS's want to double check this sites work?

I run a flat BB system too. Right now I am looking for software that includes a Karma type Friend/Foe filtering solution. SCOOP has been considered by it's more of a news/slashcode type system.

I am still digging through options of different Content Managment Systems myself here:
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

Let me know if you find a software solution that works for you.

This comparison was done very well but it should be noted that there is a far more comprehensive and dynamic CMS / blog / portal application comparison chart at the CMS Matrix site.

You can also submit new software feature reviews and rate the software which is already there. ;)

at The CMS Matrix; you can pick up to 10 you want to compare.

Also check out CMS Québec, the Oscom matrix and the CMS matrix - mostly for CMSes, but blogs often fit that category too.

For feature by feature comparisions between a large number of CMS applications, check www.cmsmatrix.org.